Why don't ISPs peer with everyone?

Wed Jun 8 00:10:55 UTC 2011

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 6:19 PM,  <rucasbrown at hushmail.com> wrote:
> why don't ISPs peer with every other ISP?

1. For those who can pull it off, getting paid twice for each packet
is better than getting paid once.

2. Your service has a value per byte and a cost per byte. If your
value is less than your cost, you go out of business. Open peering
facilitates greater consumption on the part of your customers. Unless
you're structured to charge them more for that increased consumption,
it reduces the value of each byte you pass.

Unless you're peering with someone in the same or higher tier (who
you'd otherwise have to pay for transit) the odds are you're reducing
the value of your bytes faster than you're reducing your cost.

Personally, I'd love to see 95th percentile billing applied
universally with everybody getting a large pipe the same way everybody
gets a 200 amp electrical service. The problem with that notion is
that A) consumers are hooked on "unlimited," and B) your toaster
doesn't get hacked and start consuming 200 amps all day without your
knowledge.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004